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$page->title = 'Letter Writing';
$page->date = '2013-06-17';
$page->thumb = 'http://nrhc-pages.northrockhill.com/events/compassion-day/Compassion-Webslider.jpg';
$page->cover = 'http://nrhc-pages.northrockhill.com/events/compassion-day/Compassion-Webslider.jpg';

?>

<h1><?= $page->title ?></h1>
<p>2 letters=40%!</p>
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    <img src="<?= $page->cover ?>">
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<h1><?= $page->title ?></h1>

<p>Last fall I gladly joined with 147 others at NRHC to sponsor a child through
Compassion International. I was excited. I was committed.  My head was full of
ideas for cute stationary I could send.  I couldn&rsquo;t wait to start this journey
with her. But, like so many things in my life, I had great intentions, but my
follow through was lame, not at all what I had envisioned in my head.</p>

<p>Gratefully, a phone call last week reminded me of my commitment.  I called
Compassion to simply update some info and ended up having an eye-opening
conversation.  The customer service person shared with me this statistic from a
recent study: sponsored children who receive two or more letters a year perform,
on average, 40% better in school than those sponsored children who don&rsquo;t receive
letters. 2 per year = 40%!  Did you head start spinning, too?  It&rsquo;s hard to
fathom that letters have that much influence.  He went on to explain that
letters are a tangible demonstration to these children that they matter, that
they are created for a purpose, that someone would notice if they fell off the
face of the earth.  That&rsquo;s one of the first steps in &rdquo;releasing children from
poverty in Jesus&rsquo; name.&ldquo;</p>

<p>Needless to say, as soon as I got off the phone, I jumped on to
Compassion&rsquo;s website and began a letter to my little one.  You think with
that statistic ringing in my head, it would have been easy. But I still
struggled with what to say.  Thankfully, Compassion has a ton of ideas on their
<a href="http://www.compassion.com/letter-writing/write-my-child.htm"
target="_blank">website</a> and <a href="http://blog.compassion.com/category
/about-letter-writing/" target="_blank">blog</a> that helped get me
going.</p>

<p>We want to see every man, woman, and child have repeated opportunities to
see, hear, and respond to the Gospel of Christ.  And Compassion is one of the
tools we have to do just that.   So my question is this - will you join us? Will
you commit to writing to your child once a month and praying for him/her
regularly? </p>

<hr>

<p class="footnote">Do you have stories about your Compassion child you&rsquo;d
like to share?  We&rsquo;d love to hear them. Email them to
<a href="mailto:compassionstories@northrockhill.com">compassionstories@northrockhill.com</a>.</p>
